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Land records and sources point to undeveloped acreage along 87th Street in south Kansas City as the place where the Stowers Institute for Medical Research may expand.

The land, on the north side of 87th Street between U.S. Highway 71 and Interstate 435, has been acquired by Oxford Acquisition LLC, according to a warranty deed filed in Jackson County on April 27.

Two months later, Stowers Institute CEO Bill Neaves announced that the institute had acquired "a large block of undeveloped land -- more than 100 acres -- within the city limits of Kansas City, Mo., and only a few minutes by car from the Country Club Plaza."

The institute has declined to disclose the location of the site, which Neaves said could accommodate several decades' worth of growth. The institute plans to add 600,000 square feet of research space every decade in perpetuity.

The size of the 87th Street parcel, its location and the timing of its purchase all point to the Stowers Institute, which is about a 10-minute drive from the parcel.

Additionally, developers of two projects on the south side of 87th Street said they'd heard that the Stowers family would be involved in research development across the street.

Lori Dean, president of Dean Machinery Co., said she had heard that the Stowers Institute expansion may take place across 87th Street from her company's new $63 million headquarters.

"If they go there, it's going to be a really great thing," Dean said. "I would welcome them as neighbors."

The new Dean Machinery headquarters, at the southwest corner of 87th Street and Interstate 435, is slated for completion in the fall of 2008.

By the spring, contractors are expected to complete the improvement of 87th Street between U.S. 71 and I-435 -- allowing further development along the thoroughfare.

With the recent demise of nearby Bannister Mall and Benjamin Plaza, Dean said, that part of south Kansas City has been in an economic tailspin. The 87th Street project, which is transforming a stretch of substandard two-lane road into a divided four-lane, is key to a resurgence, she said.

On the south side of the stretch, just west of the Dean Machinery site, Damon Pursell Construction Co. is working on another dynamite development for the area.

Since buying Rockridge Quarry in 1998, Damon Pursell Construction has been blasting limestone pillars out of mining caves under the 508-acre site, then filling in the craters to prepare the land for redevelopment.

Meanwhile, Specialty Restaurants Corp. of Anaheim, Calif., has been buying land north of 87th Street -- including the eight-tract parcel it sold to Oxford Acquisition LLC in April.

In a document filed with the Missouri secretary of state's office, the address for Oxford Acquisition LLC's registered agent is listed as 4510 Belleview Ave., Suite 300 -- the address of law firm White Goss Bowers March Schulte & Weisenfels PC.

The document does not list the principals of Oxford Acquisition LLC. However, Mike Pursell, president of Damon Pursell Construction, said James Stowers III formed Oxford Acquisition to acquire the land.

James Stowers III -- the chairman of American Century Cos. Inc. and the son of Stowers Institute co-founder James Stowers Jr. -- is Pursell's partner in a nearby development project, Pursell said.

Pursell said his understanding was that the land north of 87th Street had been purchased for an office and research development but not necessarily for the Stowers Institute's expansion.

Either way, the development would serve as the northern end of a new research corridor. The southern end would be the old Marion Laboratories campus, where Cerner Corp. leased 750,000 square feet earlier this year for a new health care software innovation headquarters.

Laurie Roberts, a spokeswoman for the Stowers Institute, said she had not been told why the institute does not want to disclose the location of its expansion site.

A source familiar with the project, however, said the 100-acre secret may be attributable to the salt-storage dome and fueling station surrounded by the new Oxford Acquisition holdings.

Jointly owned by the city of Kansas City and the Missouri Department of Transportation, the so-called South Consolidated Service Center would have to be moved and its current site acquired to accommodate a second Stowers campus.

The Stowers Institute opened its current 600,000-square-foot facility on an 11-acre campus at 1000 E. 50th St. in November 2000.

Following last year's passage of Amendment 2, a Missouri constitutional measure protecting stem cell research, the institute said it would start building a similarly sized research facility somewhere in the Kansas City area by 2009.

In conjunction with its June 28 site-acquisition announcement, however, the institute said it had put its expansion plans on hold until the continuing anti-embryonic stem cell research climate in Missouri improves.

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